


Orange is the new red

by Pigsinspaaace



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-11 09:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12932100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigsinspaaace/pseuds/Pigsinspaaace
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a college freshman named Enjolras. Our story begins with him thinking about Grantaire. Because, well, that happens a lot. But don’t tell him. Either of them, actually. They’re not ready to know.(Oh, also, this fic has nothing to do with prison. R/Enj just always sounds like orange in my head, and red is Enjolras' color, and so.)





	1. In which a meeting is held

**Author's Note:**

  * For [standalone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/standalone/gifts).



** Enj **

Enjolras simply doesn’t understand the guy. It is his own failure to understand that drives him the most crazy. Because understanding things is what Enjolras excels at. It is who he is.

Enj understands movements and motivations, cause and effect, the inner and outer workings of the governing structures of our society, both hidden and open.

Furthermore, Enjolras understands people. He knows how to encourage and how to disparage. How to manipulate the intricate mechanisms he has come to understand so deeply, and at such great cost.

More importantly for our current story, Enjolras likes to think he also understands the ‘who’s, that underlie all the ‘how’s. Understands, and therefore knows what they need and what they deserve.

He is merciless to the set of people he labels ‘oppressors,’ fierce on behalf of those he labels ‘oppressed,’ and loyal and grateful to the very few he labels ‘friends.’ Those who fall outside these categories he ignores; if he had to give them a label, it would be ‘useless.’

So where, exactly, does this jackass Grantaire fit in?

He is not a friend. Nor is he oppressed. And (thanks be to all that is holy, which is nothing, but still) he is certainly not in league with the oppressors.

Grantaire clearly falls into the useless category. Which means he should just be ignored.

But. This loud, obnoxious, facile drunkard cannot be ignored, because those precious few whom Enjolras counts as friends- they love Grantaire. They love him with a sincerity and depth that Enjolras absolutely cannot doubt, and for reasons Enjolras absolutely cannot fathom.

This leaves Enjolras with no model for interaction; Enjolras finds such a state intolerable.

It is the first time in a long time that he feels uncertain, and he hates it. He hates how it brings him back to those years before he learned to trust his own perception of the world around him, before he discovered that his own two feet were more than strong enough to stand on.

Yes. So. Enjolras hates feeling like this. He fucking hates it. He hates feeling like he just has no fucking idea what to do with the man who calls himself R (like he’s some kind of superior universal entity but Enj will not indulge in petty anger because he conserves all his fire for blazing through injustice and fuck when did he become such a self-indulgent little shit and why does Grantaire do this to him and the color of his eyes and the way they crinkle when he smiles, truly smiles, is not the issue here so this train of thought will stop NOW).

Enjolras tries to be nice. He really, really tries. But even their friends acknowledge that Grantaire often chooses his opinions with the sole aim of pissing Enjolras off.

How can he possibly be expected to abide a man with no principles, a man who is either pivoting at whim on topics of importance or else demeaning those same topics by retreating to oblivious drinking? Or punning. The lowest point of humor (though Enjolras begrudgingly has to acknowledge that he cannot always withhold his own smile of appreciation for R’s more imaginative puns).

So Enjolras does what he has always done. He does the brave thing; he acts. He does the scientific thing; he tests. He systematically cycles through his four modes, trying to find the one that fits.

None do.

Perhaps he needs more than one?

He tries them all, with no success.

Enjolras is not defeated. There are more things he can test. Maybe the order matters? Or the timing? Or the number?

Enjolras is methodical as he cycles through the options. He is merciless, fierce, loyal, dismissive. He is dismissive, loyal, fierce, merciless. He is fierce, loyal. He is merciless, dismissive. He is… tired.

This has gone on for months, and Enj doesn’t know what the fuck else to do, and it’s exhausting and it’s eating away at his ability to concentrate on anything else and, well, maybe, if he is being honest with himself (and he is always honest with himself, with everyone; truth is his highest value, and so he probably ought to stop avoiding the thing about which he is being honest), he might be just a little teeny tiny bit infatuated.

** R **

Grantaire tries to be nice. He really, really does. But even their friends wince in sympathy at the cutting ice of Enjolras’ disdain.

Grantaire will be the first to admit that he uses Enjolras as a finger to poke at the bruise that is his inner self. But it only works because Enjolras is perfectly willing to give cruel voice to what Grantaire himself already knows.

Grantaire knows only too well that, as Enjolras has so often pointed out, he is a weak coward who avoids painful topics instead of facing them. He knows that he deflects and distracts instead of engaging with the relentless ghosts that haunt his undimmed consciousness. He knows that he is a craven drunk who can’t go a full day without therefore trying to dim said consciousness.

Grantaire knows that a stronger man wouldn’t cave in to the quiet peace of oblivion; he knows that a better man wouldn’t drink until the ghosts start to fade, or at the very least, to shut up, just for a little while. Please. At least for the space of this next drink.

Grantaire knows all that, but sometimes he needs to hear it, too. Sometimes he needs to feel the bracing sting of unforgiving truths. Just as sometimes he needs to feel the calming sharpness of a blade against his skin. He needs to be cut, to feel.

He also needs to hide both these needs from his friends. So he is careful as he chooses where to cut, and how to hide it. He smirks and laughs as he provokes Enjolras into reminding him that he is worthless; that he is a coward; that he does not deserve the love of their shared friends; that he contributes nothing, accomplishes nothing, amounts to nothing. Is nothing.

Grantaire sits back and secretly lets the hidden blood flow.

He entertains and smiles and reinforces the shell of himself, props it up for his friends. He turns it slowly, allows it to baste in the undeserved love of this circle of people who can’t be allowed to know the truth. That the shell is all there is. Inside it, he is nothing.

Outside of him, Enjolras shines with the force of everything that Grantaire is not. He is passionate, charismatic, steadfast. He can stand alone and prevail; he is surrounded by the love of his friends, but doesn’t need it. He knows he exists, that he matters, that his ideas are worth speaking and his causes worth acting.

Enjolras is breathtaking.

Enjolras is so fucking beautiful.

And therein glints the sharpest blade that Grantaire holds to his own pulse, gingerly and ruthlessly. His overpowering love for the man who loathes him. God, Grantaire is such an idiot. He is so, so fucked. Which he knows. So he might as well get another drink.

** Enj **

Take today for an example. Today, he tries ‘friend’ mode as the first in the cycle, and at first, it seemed to be working. The group is tackling prison reform. Grantaire is sharp. Focused. Impassioned. Beautiful, if truth be told (and we’ve already gone over Enjolras’ feelings on the matter of truth).

And then, provoked by nothing at all, Grantaire changes on him. He becomes silent, orders his first drink. He doodles in pen and blade on the wooden tables of the Musain. (Yes, Enjolras is aware that this happens often. He is aware that Musichetta forgives him every time. He knows that Grantaire is conscientious and skilled at returning the varnished surface to its unblemished state. But that in no way changes the fact that it is an act of vandalism, plain and simple.)

They had gone from planning how to stage an effective protest in the park, to Grantaire signaling the bartender and laughing with Feuilly about some other topic, in the space of an instant. With no fucking warning. The whiplash is enough to make the unflappable Enjolras lose his chain of thought, albeit briefly.

Enjolras regains his train of thought. The proposal currently being considered is locking themselves in outdoor cages, identical to those in which prisoners condemned to solitary confinement exercise for one hour each day.

Enjolras turns his attention back to the other dozen faces that remained turned towards his. He trains his eyes on the twenty-four others that remain focused on the task at hand. He turns his back to R’s table, and switches modes. (He goes with dismissive, even though he tried that one yesterday. He just doesn’t have the strength for merciless today.)

It is possible that Enj occasionally sends hopeful glances in R’s direction. It is certain that they are not met. 

** R **

Take today, for example. It starts off fine. Enjolras is in a benevolent mood, favoring Grantaire with a smile when he wanders in to the meeting, on time for a change.

Grantaire never knows which Enjolras he will find upon arrival. According to Courf, Enjolras is generally as predictable as an atomic clock; it’s only around Grantaire that he becomes more of an atomic bomb. Having the power to wring that much feeling from the marble statue of a man would be flattering, if it wasn’t so obviously a feeling of disgust.

But today, Grantaire is greeted by what he has come to think of as the “friend” version of Enjolras. It is good timing, because Grantaire’s day has been going pretty well up to this point. He’s been sleeping better lately, and he has enough requests in his Fiverr account to hold him over for a while. He’s even started sketching again.

This isn’t a day for slicing and bruising. So Grantaire lets himself relax. He sits closer to the front (fine, to Enjolras) than usual, beside Feuilly, who smiles happily and claps him on the back. He doesn’t order a drink immediately. He even finds himself in agreement with the group for a change. Or maybe that is just him indulging in the moment of conflict-free camaraderie, reluctant to disrupt it by thinking too hard about the probability of actually changing the criminal justice system they all agreed was broken.

It turns out to be a fucking mistake, of course. At the very least, he should have gotten a drink immediately. He should know better. He does know better. But still, most of what he does with his life is a mistake. At least this mistake was preceded by a bit of gentle happiness.

A mistake, though. Definitely. Especially the sitting up front part. It had all been going fine, everyone shouting out ideas and brainstorming on how to “raise awareness” (like awareness has ever made a bruise less painful) and “get the message out” (as though the problem was that the message was locked up somewhere, and its freedom could somehow secure that of its fellow prisoners).

Grantaire contains all his painful parentheticals, leaves the quote marks off the efforts of his fellows, joins in the fray without reservation or judgement. He suggests holding the protest in the park, now that spring was blooming. People are prone to affection when standing in the delicately scented, grassy sunshine. All is going swimmingly.

Until Marius (sweet, oblivious, clueless, cruel Marius) suggests that an effective approach might be to erect cages in the park, similar to the ones that inmates in solitary confinement were forced to stay in for the hour or two they were allowed outdoors to exercise.

Grantaire holds his breath for a moment, waiting for the horrifically tasteless idea to be gently buried by the better sense of their friends. But he is left waiting, unable to breathe, as other voices pick up and then echo Marius’ suggestion.

Situations like this, when truly offensive plans are discussed with oblivious enthusiasm, are what ultimately provoke Grantaire into biting out words that are genuinely bitter. As opposed to the calculated bitterness he usually used to set off the breathtaking spectacle of Enjolras’ ire.

Grantaire can’t tolerate the way his friends playact at outrage, from the safe vantage point of their privileged lives. Not all of them, obviously. He knows that. He isn’t being fair. But no one else ever  _says_ anything.

And so it always falls to Grantaire to acidly explain why marching through the streets wearing burqas might offend more than it helped; why painting bruises on themselves in solidarity with the abused might offend more than it helped; why sleeping for a night on the street to protest homelessness might offend more than it helped.

Why they all keep missing the fucking point, over and over again, no matter how good their intent. Why their actions, even well intended, will bring pain and cause harm and fucking make things worse, what are they even thinking. 

This time, he can’t do it. He can’t be the one to explain why eagerly volunteering to lock themselves in kennels to demonstrate the cruel horror of a prisoner’s daily life would not be fucking helpful to anyone. Anyone.

He can’t handle being the one forced to make his friends aware of things they should already fucking know, like the fact that free men and women crawling into cages they could exit any time they wanted to, why this was not going to bring comfort to all the human spirits that inhabited all the captive bodies subjected to the endless routine of indignity that came of being completely owned and controlled by people stronger and better armed than they were, thank you very much, so stop fucking pretending you know anything about it when you fucking don’t know shit.

He can’t do it, this time. This time, it hits too close to home, and Grantaire sits back silently instead. He grows paler as the idea proceeds unimpeded and gains momentum as it tumbles across the minds of his friends, carried on the current of their conversation.

At least, in making the fatal error of sitting near the front of the room without even a bottle to hide behind, he had sat next to Feuilly. Feuilly, bless his perceptive PTSD soul, notices the change in Grantaire immediately. He quickly signals the waiter to bring some wine, and spends the rest of the meeting distracting Grantaire with hilarious tales of his three part-time jobs.

Grantaire doodles and drinks and surreptitiously watches Enjolras. Occasionally, he senses Enjolras’ gaze shifting towards him, and he averts his eyes. He cannot look him in the eyes, not right now, not like this. Enjolras is too confusing.

Grantaire doesn’t understand how to interact with the guy. It is his own failure to understand that depresses him the most. Because Grantaire understands human interactions; he is a master of reading a group of people, and shaping the dynamics to protect himself, to hide in plain sight.

The thing about Enjolras is, Grantaire respects him and despises him at the same time. Enjolras is not blind or naïve. This is a war for him, not a game. Grantaire respects him for that. But Enjolras also believes, with a fervor that sears Grantaire to the core, that it is a war he will win, or die trying. For that, Grantaire despises him.

Enjolras fills Grantaire with hope and despair, and that is a fucking shitty combination that is intolerable for someone as sober as he is. So Grantaire drinks, and drinks and drinks.

Eventually the meeting ends, but that is a meager reprieve. There will be another meeting, and Grantaire will go to it. And another and another and another. Grantaire knows it will all happen again, and Grantaire knows that he should stay away, and Grantaire knows that he won’t. Grantaire knows, in short, that he is fucked. But that is nothing new.

Grantaire gives the universe the finger and turns his back on it, to watch Enjolras for just a little bit longer.


	2. In which they meet again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, that awkward moment when two former acquaintances meet after ten years, each still somehow oblivious to the fact that their pointless crush on the other had actually been requited all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time passes. Protests come and go. Grantaire comes and goes. Enjolras’ confusion remains, and is as infuriating as ever. But they grow from freshmen to sophomores, juniors, seniors. They graduate, disperse. Flanked by Courfeyrac and Combeferre, Enjolras enters the world of adults and begins his revolution in earnest. He loses track of R, pushes his confusions aside, focuses on the task at hand. For his part, Grantaire does what it takes to get his shit together. It takes a lot. But now he’s come out the other side, an artist and academic and founder of a prestigious multidisciplinary Center for Art and Human Rights in Flagstaff, AZ. Which is usually nice. Until today.

** R **

“Why are you so upset? I thought you liked the guy?”

Grantaire groans. “No, Ep. No, no, no. I never liked him.”

Eponine is unimpressed. Grantaire concedes (internally) that it had not been all that impressive a denial. “In every version of the R backstory I’ve managed to dig up,” she declaims haughtily, “there has been a golden god loved from afar. Now the greatest of them all, Apollo in all his glory, has descended to Flagstaff to be the scholar in residence, and you are the chair of the make-nice committee, and you are going to stop fucking whining and help me plan this dinner.”

Grantaire does not acknowledge that every subsequent manifestation of the golden god sprung from the brow of that very first freshman year deity. This might be because he is still stuck on the first part of the conversation. He’d had a point, and was going to fucking make it. “ _Loved_ , yes.  _Liked_ , no. There’s a difference.”

And there is. But Eponine is still unimpressed, and Grantaire is an adult now (more or less), so he stops fucking whining and starts designing the welcome dinner party invitation under Eponine’s watchful (and, despite what she may have said, worried) eyes.

The fucking welcome fucking dinner fucking party for fucking Enjolras who apparently picked fucking Flagstaff which is in the fucking middle of fucking nowhere. Seriously. There were literally thousands of other places he could have decided to grace with his scholarly presence. Tens of thousands, maybe. Why here?

Why did the universe enjoy messing with Grantaire so much? He’d thought they had a good thing going lately, him and the universe. He had accepted that not everything is shitty, and it in turn had stopped being quite so shitty to him.

He is never trusting the universe again.

(It really doesn’t care, either way.)

 

** Enj **

Enjolras thinks he is going to pass out. He had been nervous to begin with. He had landed only a couple of hours ago, and hadn’t had time to do more than shower and change before going to this welcome dinner.

Anxiety was one of the emotions he’d developed in the past few years, and he was still getting used to it. He wasn’t prepared to have it compounded by unexpectedly running into someone from his past. Grantaire, of all people.   

Enjolras makes himself focus. The protective instincts he has honed over the past decade or so quietly do their thing, making sure that his smile doesn’t so much as flicker and his hands are steady as he greets and is greeted by his new colleagues.

He desperately tries to comb his memory for anything that might explain why, not ten feet away from him (and wearing a ridiculous pair of tie-dyed bermudas and an incongruously crisp white button-up shirt) stands Grantaire. It’s like a hole has been ripped in what is supposed to be reality, and a scrap of an old movie has started running on an invisible screen behind it. And he can’t fucking think.

Nothing has changed. Grantaire is exactly the same as Enjolras remembers: smiling, surrounded as usual by a crowd of friends bellowing with laughter at whatever escapade he is recounting. They could be on the quad, undergrads again. It’s like seeing a ghost.

The ghost of college is not welcome. College was a terrible time, usually shielded from view by a frozen haze of active forgetting. He had been so constrained within himself back then, so unable to see beyond blazing lines of black and white, vicious divisions of right from wrong.

He’ll figure it out later. Why Grantaire has materialized. Here. At a dinner party thrown by the chair of the Northern Arizona University Law School’s ethics department to welcome their newest scholar in residence. He vaguely remembers some wording somewhere about the fellowship being sponsored by a multidisciplinary center, but those details seemed irrelevant at the time.

He is on autopilot now, shaking hands and accepting congratulations. This leaves the voice he has come to think of as “internalized Cosette” free to berate him soundly.

Internalized Cosette is right. (She’s always right.) He underestimates the potential impact of the people who are invisible to him because of their absence from what he considers to be the spheres of consequence. He does it every fucking time. Or he used to. He thought he’d learned. He thought he knew how to watch for the edge cases these days.

He was wrong.

Because Enjolras realizes there really is only one plausible explanation. Grantaire works at NAU, as part of one of the disciplines that make this Center so very multi. Art, probably. Enjolras would never have taken Grantaire for an academic. Of course, chides internalized Cosette, Enjolras easily loses sight of the fact that people can change, despite having done a fair bit of changing himself.

He can just imagine the real Cosette rolling her eyes at him when he tells her this story, which he intends to do the second he gets back to his room. His clothes and toothbrush may all still be in suitcases, but his computer was unpacked and hooked up to the internet within minutes of arriving. (Enjolras knows what really matters in life when you travel a lot, fomenting discord and encouraging revolution everywhere you go. Secure routers. Secure, encrypted, impossible-to-hack-into chains of routers.)

She will roll her eyes and point out that he has, yet again, missed the most important thing, because he can’t see past what he thinks is important. He knows he’s missing it, here and now. He hopes she can fill him in later. He’s pretty sure that his current extreme overreaction to running into an old classmate is going to turn out to be a clue. He can wait for Cosette to figure it out for him. He can make it until then.

As Enjolras’ capacity for observation and rational thought slowly return, he unconsciously starts to catalog the ways in which Grantaire has, indeed, changed. The man’s face is tanner (and framed by hair longer) than he remembers. Said hair is pulled informally into a kind of knot-bun-mess at the nape of his neck, unfairly highlighting the elegant lines of tendon and bone that join his neck to his shoulders. Which have also changed, broadening and growing into themselves since college.

As Enjolras’ subconscious relentlessly insists on collecting more details (like the nicely muscled shape of those new shoulders, or the flicker of shadow across R’s well-formed Adam’s apple as he swallows, or the beauty of a single eyebrow raised in ironic self-mockery during a particularly funny part of the story), his conscious self is forced to acknowledge that he is well and truly fucked.

** R **

Seeing him is every bit as bad as he expected. Grantaire pauses in the doorway for a minute, scanning the room for escape options. Enjolras is unchanged. Still as unfairly beautiful as ever. And still shedding puddles of munificent warmth as condescendingly as ever. But now, it makes Grantaire want to punch his face in rather than fuck him senseless. Well, if not instead, at least in addition.

Grantaire would like to believe that was a sign of growth, but his therapist has pointed out to him that this kind of violence is more like a kid beheading a favorite doll. Apparently getting over an addictive dependency requires violent hatred before it can mature into indifference.

Apparently Grantaire has only achieved the emotional wisdom of a five-year-old.

This is not a surprise. What is truly disappointing is that he hadn’t had the foresight to arrive at this fiasco already drunk. This is both disappointing and also kind of pathetic, since he’s developed enough self-awareness now to know that even this preliminary sobriety was an offering to a god he couldn’t fully reject, no matter how fervently he curses his name under his breath. He's never going to quit, so why the fuck didn't he show up drunk?

Something about the whole situation feels familiar. Not in a good way.

“Hey, Grantaire. So. Um. What brings you here tonight?”

It's Enjolras’ voice, coming from just over Grantaire’s shoulder. He pivots slowly on the ball of his foot, while considering whether the dominant thing he is feeling is: (A) an unwelcome thrill at the sound of his name on Enjolras’ tongue; (B) a mildly hysterical impulse to giggle at the awkward-pick-up-line formulation; (C) furious incredulity that Enjolras, newly arrived today, is asking him, longtime resident and founding member of the Center, what he is doing here; or (D) a tiny stab of triumph at having made the great orator stumble over his words, presumably out of some level of anxiety at seeing Grantaire.

Because he knows that the answer should be C, but he is also perfectly aware that it is in fact A with an undercurrent of D and an alarming level of B, Grantaire stalls for just another moment.

He covers by taking a drag on his cigarette, and compensates by allowing some of the exhaled smoke to waft closer to Enjolras’ face than is strictly polite. The grimace he receives in response restores Grantaire’s equilibrium and shores up his resolve not concede an inch to the humiliating adoration that threatens to pick up right where it left off.

“Well, let's see. What am I doing here? I guess it has something to do with the fact that I live here. And I work here. And teach here.” And, he doesn't add (for reasons he can't quite understand), I'm the one who led the charge to build an interdisciplinary center for art and human rights and establish a fucking fellowship for a scholar in fucking residence which I see, now, was a fucking mistake.

Surely Enjolras had filled out some sort of application? Did he not google the founding committee for the Center? Had he simply failed to notice Grantaire’s name? Or, Grantaire masochistically reasons, it must have been just so absurd a concept that he might have done something with his pathetic joke of an existence, that Enjolras could more easily believe there were dozens of Grantaires roaming the country.

It is equal parts reassuring and depressing that Enjolras - detail-oriented, nitpicky Enjolras - still manages to have an enormous blind spot centered on wherever Grantaire happens to be.

“So, that's me. What about you?” Grantaire tries and fails to just stop talking. “Actually, forget I asked that, it's not a real question, I know exactly what you're doing here. Congrats on getting the fellowship.” Here Grantaire bows mockingly, and adds with a sarcastic glance “And oh, hey, hi, great to see you too, after, what is it, ten years?”

At least the man has the decency to blush. Though the rising color along Enjolras’ neck and across his cheeks and ears evokes some decidedly indecent images in R’s imagination.

** Enj **

Shit. Barely ten seconds into their first conversation in a decade, and Grantaire has already succeeded in making him feel wrong-footed and defensive. Enjolras nods before he can say yet another thing that he would regret (he counts this as growth), turns sharply and doesn’t stop walking until he is back in the nondescript apartment that apparently is the “residence” part of this scholar-in-residence gig.

Enjolras sighs, toes off his shoes, flops onto the couch, and pings Cosette.

Who is now caught between berating him and pitying him. Neither of which is very pleasant. “Wait, you just _left_? Without saying _anything_?” Cosette’s voice sounds strange, and Enjolras concentrates on the lessons he has been dutifully learning about human communication.

Shit. Cosette is stifling laughter, isn’t she? She isn’t, in fact, berating or pitying. She’s laughing. And he was wrong. Again. Being berated or pitied would actually have been pleasant, compared to this.

“Aren't you always the one telling me that if I have nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all?” Enjolras snaps, the irritated discomfort of the evening getting to him.

Cosette fights laughter for a few more seconds and then pulls herself together. Not for nothing is she his best friend.

“Yes, Enjolras, I am. But I'm also the one who reminds you that you usually do have something nice to say, if you stop and think before speaking.”

Enjolras groans. It’s true. He’s just starting to get an inkling of how horribly true it is.

“I’ve never known what to say to him. Remember my categories, from college?”

Cosette nods. She remembers Enjolras' old coping mechanisms. Her expression changes subtly, from a smile that comes after a laugh to a smile that comes from loving a person you’ve helped through some hard times.

“Well, he used to drive me crazy, because he didn’t fit any of them. I couldn’t figure him out. I always got it wrong.”

Enjolras is quiet. Cosette waits.

His mind is frantically trying to come up with another explanation for the past decade. Any other explanation. It fails him. His mind, usually so reliable at both knowing and not knowing things, sits at a mocking distance from him and waits.

He.

He is in love with Grantaire. It’s absurd, implausible, not possible, and yet there it is, undeniably true. The frozen half-self he’d been in college would never have recognized the feeling. Now, ten years later, its form is less obscure, and Enjolras sees it for what it is. Despite never having felt it before or since. There’s enough documentation collected throughout human history to diagnose the situation.

Ten years of ignorance about the matter makes some sense, Enjolras being Enjolras and all. In college he was still too close to the crucible that had formed him, to tolerate risks like love or sex.

In the intervening years, he had experimented with sexuality as methodically and systematically as he had studied counterrevolutions and dark web microseeding. With about as much success as could be expected from a methodical approach to what was, by all accounts, normally a fairly instinctive process.

“Anyway, I don't think he'd really want to hear the version of nice thing I want to say to him,” Enjolras mumbles.

“Hmmm.” Cosette, being Cosette, skips over the unspoken that most people can’t help but speak, getting right to the point. “How come you never told me?”

She implies that there is a thing, waiting to be told. Enjolras, recalling his disproportionate panic and the thrill that had raced through him upon seeing Grantaire, knows she is right.

Fuck. Enjolras is so fucked.

“I don't think I realized it until tonight. Until 30 seconds ago, actually.”

No. He had not. At all.

He remembers Grantaire, as he’d been then. He had pulsed with the force of everything that Enjolras was not. He was passionate, charismatic, steadfast. He had been willing to stand alone, even when he knew he would never prevail. He was real in a way no one else had been. He doubted everything: that he existed, that he mattered, that his ideas were worth speaking or his actions worth doing. He was breathtaking. He had been so fucking beautiful.

Enjolras had not been prepared, back then, to weather the force Grantaire had wielded. Whatever had frozen the blood in Enjolras’ adolescent veins, reduced him to marble, made him impervious to feelings- whatever it had been back then that had cut him off from his own humanity, it had hidden this knowledge and frozen it solid. And, like a strange beast caught in amber or submerged in tar or buried by snow, this love has been preserved for a decade, ready to emerge whole.

Now. In Flagstaff. Surrounded by suitcases. Talking to Cosette.

To turn off this alarming train of thought, Enjolras continues speaking.

“And. He's such an asshole. He blew smoke in my face.” Enjolras is unpleasantly aware that he is whining.

He expects Cosette to laugh again, but this time, she’s gone kind of still. “Oh my fucking god, Enjolras, you are turned on by second hand smoke. How have I gone this long without knowing this about you?”

In her shock, Cosette has become uncharacteristically chatty. “Scratch that question. Wait, so, how long? When did you meet this guy?”

“Um. College? Freshman year?”

Cosette sits back, stunned. “Listen to me very, very carefully, my friend. You are going to drink a healthy serving of whisky. I am going to watch. Then you are going to shut down your computer, put on your shoes, and kiss this man until neither of you can remember your own names. I will never talk to you again if you don’t.”

Her threat is probably idle, but it’s not worth finding out. Because she’s right. A decade slowly rearranges itself in Enjolras’ mind. He is all too aware that if does not indeed succeed in the task she has set him, he will probably never speak to himself again either.

** R **

Well, at least the danger has passed. Grantaire had been fairly sure that it would. For one thing, he could always outlast Enjolras at a party. No matter how much may have changed since college, there weren’t enough change particles in the metaphysical universe to reverse that inequality.

On top of which sat the cherry of a fact that, in the absence of a shared group of friends to contain them, there was absolutely no reason for Enjolras to spend more than five seconds in talking distance of Grantaire. As had just been indisputably demonstrated.

Grantaire would be more upset with himself for resorting to facile sarcasm and thus ruining any chance of changing this equation, had there been any chance at all that it could have changed. Really, R’s only regret is that he hadn’t gotten drunk in advance, and he is steadily righting that particular wrong. This, too, feels uncomfortably familiar.

Grantaire is sitting at the top of a hidden set of stairs, facing the moon where it hangs low over the garden in the center of the Center. It is cold outside, now that the sun has gone down, but he likes the cold. It holds him fast at just the right edge of drunk and sober.

And he has affection for this corner of the gardens. He built this crumbling staircase. He planted the blackberry bushes and thistles to discourage anyone else from venturing up here. It is a tiny haven of superficial dilapidation that hides a sheltered lookout from which one could see without being seen.

Except by his all-seeing best friend. Fucking Eponine. Grantaire hears her footsteps behind him, but stubbornly refuses to turn around. He’d already been an adult, already designed the invitations and made the rounds and been very nice to everyone and he had fucking earned the right to wallow for a while. She should know that.

But the weight that settles beside him isn’t coiled into Eponine’s compact form. The body next to his smells like mint, not weed. Only the underlying notes of whisky are familiar.

Despite himself, Grantaire looks up. To find not Eponine, but Enjolras, sitting beside him, cut from marble and moonlight.

Which so patently implausible that Grantaire surreptitiously scrapes his forearm against the rough stone to test how much he can trust his senses. He didn’t think he was that drunk. And he isn’t, his skin obligingly reports; so could he please fucking stop flaying himself now.

Fucking Enjolras has no fucking right to already know the best secret hiding places in R’s personal kingdom, hours after arriving in it uninvited. And what the fuck is he even doing here. He’d left, ages ago. Hours. An hour, at least. Twenty minutes, minimum. Chased away by R’s continuing failure to be anything but himself.

R, struggling for balance and holding tight to the fraying edges of his sobriety, turns to explain this to Enjolras. But, upon turning, he finds that the man is looking at him intently. The words die in his throat.

Grantaire can’t place the look in Enjolras’ eyes. It’s some sort of cross between the fiery determination unleashed in the early moments of a rally, and the furious irritation unleashed when Grantaire interrupted yet another meeting with an assertion of the fundamental ugliness at the heart of humanity. It’s not either of those. What is it?

Grantaire gets distracted by the compulsion to figure out what is going on in those blue, blue eyes. This investigation (as he is only distantly aware) means that Grantaire remains, frozen, staring into those eyes. There’s this way Enjolras’ eyes get sometimes, hot and cold, and then his mouth, with blues and pinks and swirling like clouds of stars.

Fuck, he had drunk too much. Because it seems like Enjolras’ eyes, still filled with this, this fucking  _expression_ , are flicking down to Grantaire’s mouth. Which can’t-

And then all thought is driven right the fuck out as Enjolras, jaw set and chin raised, leans in and kisses him.

** Enj **

It is really unclear to Enjolras how he is supposed to follow Cosette’s directive.

Finding Grantaire had been easy enough. He knew that Grantaire would be outside, so he asked around and was directed to this courtyard. He knew that Grantaire would probably be somewhere high enough to watch things, so he found the raised part of the garden. He knew that Grantaire would want to be hidden enough not to be watched in return, so he sought out the most shadowed and obscured spot. And sure enough, there was Grantaire, as yet unaware of Enjolras behind him.

Enjolras isn’t quite sure how he remembers all these things about Grantaire, but he imagines it is not unrelated to the series of startling revelations this evening has brought him. Like the fact that he has been unwittingly in love with the man for a decade.

Somehow, in the conversation with Cosette, the question of whether these feelings were reciprocated had been elided. Faced with Grantaire’s back (if such a thing is possible), Enjolras is suddenly aware that this is a very important detail.

In the same way that he knew where to find R, Enjolras knows that the answer was _yes_ , at some point. He knows that now, he has to find out whether the answer is still yes.

He knows all this. What he emphatically does not know, is how he is supposed to go about finding out the answer to the question, without forcing the answer to turn to _no_ by sheer force of his ability to always find the wrong thing to say to Grantaire.

Still undecided, Enjolras sits down. He senses the tension in Grantaire's body, the way he automatically reacts with irritation to Enjolras’ intrusion. This is not a good start. Enjolras looks at Grantaire, sitting beside him. Grantaire is firmly not looking back, so Enjolras has a moment to study his profile.

Enjolras knows that he ought to spend this moment working out a careful and effective means of inquiring as to whether, after a contentious non-friendship in college followed by ten years’ absence and a somewhat disastrous reunion earlier this evening, Grantaire would be open to giving him another chance.

But Enjolras can’t think. He’s transfixed by Grantaire's profile. He experiences a strange sense of time folding and sliding. Enjolras is young and old, watching Grantaire, who is old and young. An ache starts to build inside him, a strange mixture of sadness and thrilling hope.

He should be figuring something out. But it’s too late, Grantaire is starting to turn. Enjolras can read Grantaire’s posture, can see that he is about to be asked to leave. But then Grantaire’s eyes find his, and he freezes. Grantaire freezes with surprise, which is hard to interpret.

Enjolras waits. He has always screwed things up by trying to talk, when it comes to Grantaire. So he will let Grantaire speak first, this time. But the moment stretches, and Grantaire, for once, is silent. They are both silent, and still Grantaire is looking at him, searching. His face is open, painted by a mixture of confusion and surprise and something that might be hope.

Suddenly, Enjolras is certain. The answer is still at least _maybe_ , even if it’s not quite _yes_. Most importantly, answer is not _no_. No one looks into someone’s eyes like that if there’s no possibility of yes.

Acting on hunch and impulse for the first time in his adult life, Enjolras decides this is enough information. At least for a try. To ask with his lips, but not through words. Grantaire can always say no. It will be embarrassing, but not immoral.

As Enjolras thinks, his eyes wander involuntarily down to Grantaire’s mouth, a sensuous sliver of pink. When he looks back up at his eyes, the answer now is undeniably yes. Well, at least yes enough to.

Oh my god, he is never going to act, he is going to sit here and let his mind freeze him solid and he doesn’t do that anymore and Cosette will never speak to him again so.

So Enjolras, not quite breathing, leans in and kisses him.

After a moment, Grantaire's answer comes in the form of a hand in his hair and a softly opening mouth. It is yes. It is yes and they are kissing and as the kiss deepens, Enjolras is taken utterly by surprise.

Now, it is not that Enjolras has never kissed anyone before. Quite to the contrary. In his extended study of sexuality and the ways it may or may not pertain to himself, he has kissed quite a number of people. His kissing experience is far more varied than most, since it was acquired carefully over time with a determined eye towards covering as much ground as possible.

So Enjolras is not surprised by the kiss, per se. He expects the initial soft contact, the transition from dry to wet, the feel of another man’s tongue moving against his own.

What Enjolras isn’t expecting is the way this kiss sweeps, hot and sharp, across him. He feels it with his entire body, in places far removed from the mouth and hands that, so far, are the only points of actual contact with Grantaire. He is surprised by the urgent craving to have more, to come close, closer, closer.

Enjolras had never kissed anyone he really wanted before. Enjolras has never really wanted anyone before. Before Grantaire, before this.

The experience shakes him, quite literally. Grantaire, alarmed, pulls away. This is unbearable. Grantaire has not moved far; Enjolras can still feel the sweet warmth of Grantaire's breath as it moves against the moist surface of his lips, which open again involuntarily.

But Enjolras does not kiss Grantaire again. He doesn’t give in to the shock of desire to pull Grantaire close, to feel his skin and the heat of his body flush against his own. He can’t intrude any farther on the question of yes or no. All he can do is wait.

** R **

Grantaire takes in the flush of Enjolras’ cheeks, the ruddy surface of his kiss-swollen mouth, the feverish darkness of his pupil-swallowed eyes. Grantaire is uncertain, for a moment, of whether this is a trick. But Enjolras, despite his capacity for ruthless soul flaying, is not intentionally cruel. And even the most single-minded revolutionary would know that to trick Grantaire this way would be nothing but cruel. Grantaire can only assume this is real.

And also, he doesn’t really give a fuck. Whatever this is, it has been offered, and Grantaire wants it, even if he knows he will inevitably lose it. Self-preservation has never been his forte.

So Grantaire leans in, and closes the distance between them again. His hand feels too large, crude and out of place against the soft perfection of the gold hair that graces the back of Enjolras’ impossibly elegant neck. It is all impossible, and Grantaire doesn’t give a fuck.

It is impossible that his hand can travel, stealing gently forward to sweep under Enjolras’ ear and trace the contours of his collarbone where it peeks out from behind the linen collar of his shirt. R, again, doesn’t give a fuck.

It is impossible that the movement of his rough skin against Enjolras’ perfect body should elicit an involuntary groan that reverberates from Enjolras’ throat directly down the center of Grantaire’s body. Grantaire finally begins to believe that perhaps it is safe, after all, to give all the fucks he wants.

The bottle of wine he brought with him to his rendezvous with insobriety chooses this moment to fall from the edge of the wall, splintering with a crash as it bounces off the flagstone stairs. Enjolras suddenly goes still, and pulls away from Grantaire with a look of fear.

The sting of withdrawal is significantly reduced by the way Enjolras is breathing; shallow, irregular breaths that match the shakiness of his hands as he lifts them. Grantaire watches Enjolras touch his fingers to his own lips, as if to check that this really just happened, or (if one is being hopeful) to soothe the loss of contact between them.

Grantaire raises an eyebrow, waiting for Enjolras to explain. This time, Enjolras uses words. As always, he doesn’t mince them.

“You’re drunk.”

This all too familiar phrase completely pisses Grantaire off.

“Sorry to offend you. I wasn’t expecting to have your tongue in my mouth tonight.”

Enjolras’ usually pale skin manages to flush an even deeper shade of red. “No. Not. I didn’t mean.”

Grantaire decides that the stammering is almost as gratifying as the panting.

Enjolras breathes deeply, regroups. “No. I mean, consent. I mean, you’re drunk. I hadn’t realized. I can’t kiss you if you’re drunk.”

Grantaire tries to see this from Enjolras’ point of view. He discovers that, even a decade later, he’s pretty good at this.

“Well, if you can’t rely on me to consent to being kissed, how can you rely on me to consent to not being kissed?”

Enjolras tries gamely to parse this, and fails. “You don’t need someone’s consent to not-kiss them.”

“But Enjolras, I know you agree that inaction is a form of action. If you’ve already started kissing someone, not-kissing is just as much an act as kissing. The solution would be not to kiss them in the first place, but that ship has sailed.”

Enjolras’ skin has gone from pink to white in the time it takes for Grantaire to finish speaking. He sits frozen, unable to kiss Grantaire or not-kiss Grantaire. The only solution is to have not kissed him, and even in his current dazed state, he knows this to be impossible. He begins to panic. “Shit. Oh my god. What am I even. Shit. Fuck. I’m so. I shouldn’t. I can’t.”

Grantaire is equal parts amused and alarmed. He finally takes pity on Enjolras, and stands. He walks, foot in front of foot, the universal test of drunk driving. He moves fluidly along the edge of the crumbling garden wall, to the far side of the grounds and back again. He sits, and takes Enjolras’ hand.

“I’m not drunk, Enjolras. I am confused by you, I’ll grant you that, but I’m ok with it. I’d like you to continue confusing me.”

Enjolras considers him seriously. “Ok, we can kiss, since we already are, but nothing else.”

Grantaire laughs. “All right, you ethical but wildly presumptuous asshole. No fucking. Now kiss me.”

And he does.

** Enj **

Enjolras wakes up the next morning in Grantaire’s apartment, fully dressed and lying on an old, lumpy couch. His back is cramped, his mouth tastes like shit, and he is wildly happy.

He lets the feeling thrill over him. He is still pretty new to feelings. Or, they are still pretty new to him. He’s gotten somewhat acclimated to having them around, to the point that he sometimes doesn’t even notice himself feeling something. He assumes this is what feelings feel like to other people.

But this new feeling is so very new, he is aware of it across every bit of his mind and his heart and his body. It’s unprecedented and so, so vibrant. It’s like the world has suddenly gained a new dimension. It is the emotional equivalent of uncovering one eye after staring at a scene for a while with the other. You thought you saw everything with one eye. With two, you experience how wrong you were. There is so much more.

Grantaire is in the adjoining kitchen, making coffee. He offers a cup to Enjolras with a practiced nonchalance that does absolutely nothing to hide his insecurity. He is sober, uncertain, and adorable. Enjolras can’t remember ever having smiled this much before coffee in the morning.

Enjolras knows that whatever comes next, will be difficult. He is ok with difficult. He’s a genius at difficult, if truth be told. And Enjolras is determined that it will be told. This will take time. Grantaire is a creature of doubt, and Enjolras’ feelings would strain the credulity of even the most trusting soul.

Enjolras rests easy in this knowledge. He knows himself to have the advantage of being a stubborn motherfucker when he wants to be. And he has never wanted anything as much as he wants Grantaire right now.

** R **

Being sober sucks, but there is nothing for it. In addition to the fact that it has been six hard-won years since he was drunk before 10 am, being drunk would only prolong this excruciatingly bizarre state of affairs. Grantaire knows that Enjolras will refuse, on (admittedly legitimate) principle, to accept any preferences he might express while drunk. So, sober it is.

Grantaire watches Enjolras sleep through the ungodly noise of grinding coffee beans. He looks at Enjolras’ sleep-messed hair. Enjolras’ long body is awkwardly folded to fit on the couch, and Grantaire feels a tug of affectionate tolerance tinged by lust.

Grantaire tries to pull his feelings apart. He needs to test each one, to see how long it might last. He is resigned to the knowledge that he will almost certainly let Enjolras in, in any sense of the word Enjolras wants. He just needs to gauge how much future pain he should expect as a result, so he can be prepared.

He is disinclined to doubt his own memories of Enjolras’ disgust for him in college, despite the fact that he was stoned or drunk for most of it. Still, they’d come back to his apartment last night, and stayed up talking about art and revolution until they’d both finally given in to exhaustion.

It had been surprisingly pleasant. This thought twists strangely, and Grantaire is uneasy to discover that, underneath the evaporating anger and resentment, sits a kernel of guilt.

He had manipulated Enjolras, all those years ago. He had pushed Enjolras toward the ugliest version of himself, purposely. He’d always felt himself to be the victim of those exchanges, even though he knew he was also their author. He hadn’t realized until now, remembering the open warmth of Enjolras’ conversation last night, that he had used Enjolras as a stick to poke at his own bruises, without considering that there might be a cost to the stick.

Nevertheless, R’s memories are tinged with the rosy fondness that the human psyche uses to disarm the past. Enjolras’ haughty fury seems quaint, almost sweet, in retrospect.

And, after years of teaching, Grantaire has more patience for the ignorant naiveté that underlies so many students’ bumbling attempts to fight forces they unfailingly underestimate. He is grateful that, for the most part, they don’t understand the powers they can’t defeat, or the futility of their earnest wars. That kind of knowledge usually comes with pain.

Grantaire forgives his students, and he forgives his friends for having once been students. He had been a student too, just as obstinate back then, trying to fight an impossible battle against empty gestures.

He forgives himself. He forgives Enjolras. Who seems to be waking up now.

It’s time for coffee.

** Enj **

His fingers brush against Grantaire’s as he takes the mug being offered. He blushes at the contact, but doesn’t let go. Grantaire smiles, very slightly, and sits next to him on the lumpy couch.

Enjolras takes Grantaire’s hand, savoring the novel feeling of their fingers wrapped together. It occurs to him that he’s never held anyone’s hand like this before. Hand-holding had never made it onto his list of sexual practices to try out.

He laughs, which makes Grantaire look slightly unsure. So Enjolras just says it out loud.

“I’ve never done this before.”

Now Grantaire looks completely unsure. He doesn’t let go of Enjolras’ hand though.

“Um. You’ve never? I don’t. You’re. A virgin? Not that that’s not-”

Enjolras responds automatically; it’s a conversation he’s had before. He doesn’t consider the fact that it might be better to have a different version of this conversation, when he’s talking to someone he actually very much wants to fuck.

“Virginity is a construct.”

Grantaire tries not to roll his eyes. He fails.

“For fuck’s sake, Enjolras. So is love. So is freedom, and democracy. Are we deconstructing constructs now? Because I’ll need more coffee.”

Grantaire starts to get up. Possibly to spike the decent amount of coffee still remaining in his mug. This is starting to get away from Enjolras, and he can’t let it.

So he keeps hold of Grantaire’s hand, and tugs him gently back down next to him. The couch is small. They are very close. Enjolras can smell Grantaire, coffee and soap and smoke. Enjolras has never wanted anything as much as he wants to chase down every scent, to find them all and taste them and mix them with his own.

He looks at Grantaire, and speaks deliberately. “I’ve fucked people. I’ve just never wanted to before now.”

At the nascent alarm he sees growing in Grantaire’s already wary eyes, he rethinks his words and quickly adds, “I didn’t not want to either. I didn’t want to or not want to.” Shit. He is so, so bad at this.

The panic must show on his face. Grantaire moves his fingers slowly across Enjolras’ as his mouth twists into a fond half smile. His eyes are wry, and his voice soft as he asks, “so, are we still deconstructing here?”

“No,” Enjolras breathes. “I want you so much, Grantaire. Please, please make me stop talking now.”

** R **

Want. Enjolras wants him, and the wanting fills Grantaire, heating him through and curling his toes. His toes are so fucking presumptuous, they’re as bad as Enjolras. But he’s starting to think they might actually have a shot. All of them.

Grantaire is aware that Enjolras’ meticulous accounting of fairness will require him to make the first move this time. So he does.

Grantaire reaches out a tentative hand, curving it over the rough skin of Enjolras’ jaw, drawing him close. Once the first line has been breached, Enjolras’ hesitations are abandoned. He kisses Grantaire back with the same single minded ferocity that he applied to toppling governments.

Enjolras’ fingers braid themselves through Grantaire’s hair, and he lays claim with his mouth to the soft skin now exposed along his throat. Grantaire makes an involuntary sound, a suppressed growl that causes the skin under Enjolras’ lips to vibrate.

Enjolras shifts, pulling Grantaire down as he lies back on the pillow Grantaire had snuck under his sleeping head last night. Grantaire balances above him, held up by muscled arms and cradled between Enjolras’ knees. Enjolras cranes his head, reaching for Grantaire, and Grantaire catches his lips between his teeth.

And suddenly everything speeds up. Enjolras’ hands roam down Grantaire’s back, under his shirt, over his ass. Grantaire, surprised for only a moment, holds Enjolras tightly by the hips, pressing down as he scrapes his teeth down his neck and sets his lips and tongue to teasing and sucking blooms of pink onto pale skin.

** Enj **

Enjolras feels everything expand and contract around and within him. The feeling of wanting and loving and having All at once, it is the sensation of having two eyes instead of one. It had seemed, just a moment before, that he could see everything. But there is so much more, and he is moving from flat to formed, surface to depth, image to experience.

He keeps moving, he is carried from the idea of wanting to the drenching reality of actually wanting. And then the delirious leap from wanting to having, which only releases more wanting and more having until nothing is left but a tangled miracle of skin and bones.

After, Enjolras whispers his wonder and his fear into R’s heart as it slows languorously back to a normal rhythm. He does not tell Grantaire that he loves him. That would be foolish, and Enjolras is determined not to be a fool in this new world he has stumbled upon. Of loving and having. Of this feeling, tight and aching and sweet.

He feels a new terror. What if he’d never found Grantaire again? What if his entire life went by and he died, never to be resurrected, never even knowing that he hadn’t ever felt this kind of love? He almost didn’t feel it, almost didn’t discover its existence dormant within himself. It was all because he read some email that mentioned a fellowship that had been referenced in some other email. It was all so close, so contingent. It almost hadn’t happened, and he would never even have known.

He can’t be sure if he has spoken these words out loud. But Grantaire is beside him, stroking his hair and nuzzling his neck and holding his hand. What might have been doesn’t matter. This is the experience he has had, and he can’t un-have it. There is no debate here between having and not-having. Enjolras has, and he has had, and he hopes he will always have.

** R **

The universe is in Grantaire’s good graces once again.

(Once again, it really doesn’t care.)


End file.
